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MORE BIG NEWS.

A year ago next week, the news staff that puts together the Pasco Times edition of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Tampa Bay Times sat at a table at Sweet Tomatoes. A few weeks earlier, I had announced my impending resignation: After five and a half years, I would leave the paper to work full time as a counselor — a requirement for graduating with my master’s degree. The meal, my “farewell lunch,” would be our last together before I packed my desk and turned in my badge.

Next week, I’ll honor the anniversary in an unexpected way:

By gettin’ my badge back.

It is with gratitude and excitement that I’ll return to the Times after what turned out to be an intermission. Same gig, same newsroom, same desk, so pumped. And so grateful for the chance — thanks be to God — to do what I wasn’t sure I would ever get to:

go back home.

🙂

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Click here to read the Tampa Bay Times online.

Click here to read what I’ve written for it.

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THE BIGGEST ANNOUNCEMENT I HAVE EVER MADE.

Since Feb. 28, 2013 — the last day of Pope Benedict’s papacy — I’ve been harboring a secret.

A secret I’m ready to share.

I sat that morning at the kitchen table, typing grateful Tweets to the pope and waiting to receive news that would make or break my day (and potentially change my life). In Notre Dame, Indiana, 1100 miles north of my house, the people gathered who would determine which kind of news I’d get. They discussed, deliberated, and decided, all from a room at a publishing house called Ave Maria Press.

After the meeting, an editor delivered the news to me like this:

“So,” he said. “How would you like to write a book for us?”

I SAID YES.

I said yes because they (the fabulous people at Ave Maria Press) said yes, too. They had gathered that day to review a book proposal I had written, and to decide whether they’d like me to write the book. Indeed they would, and indeed I am (and it’s been a work in progress ever since).

The book — about love, chastity, and sex — is slated for a Fall 2014 release (and I will reveal the title and cover when they’re ready). In the meantime, two things:

1. Thank you for your readership. I am more grateful than I adequately can express that you read what I write, respond to what I write, and inspire what I write by sharing or challenging my sentiments. More to come!

2. Your support while I write (and eventually launch) the book is so appreciated. Here are four ways you can help, if you’d like: First, pray for me, and for the project. Writing a book is officially the greatest feat I ever have attempted (one at which I will succeed by the grace of God, with the help of a wonderful editor). Second, participate in an upcoming series of surveys I will share (which might result in your being quoted in the book!). Third, invite me to discuss love, chastity, and sex with young adults or parents at your church, school, or other organization. Fourth, share my work with your friends (and let them know I’d love to connect at arleenspenceley.com, on Twitter, on Facebook, and on Google+).

Hope you all are as pumped as I am. And now, I write.

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Hey Tampa! Let’s meet up.

A week ago today, I sat on a red bar stool in front of a podium in the youth center at Christ the King Catholic Church in Tampa. But that night, there weren’t any youth.

Instead, young adults showed up who are part of the parish’s young adult ministry and I got to do two of my favorite things:
Meet new people and talk sex.
The topic for the talk I gave was “Why Saving Sex For Marriage Doesn’t Doom It,” ambiguous on purpose because saving sex dooms neither sex nor marriage. The goal of the talk is in part to tell my story, that of a 27-year-old virgin whose career in journalism was the catalyst for her closer look at the Church’s perception of sex versus the world’s. It is also in part to rebut what the world says about saving sex (that it results in doom), and to prepare the people I meet to do the same.
I write about this today for two reasons:
One: I am grateful to CTK Young Adults for the opportunity to chat and for the discussion that followed (which was so good we took it to the parking lot after we got kicked out).
Two: I want to do it again this summer and fall, and this time for the young adults, parents, or staff at your church (Catholic or not). Priority one, as a resident of the Tampa Bay Area of Florida, is to travel throughout it. (But if your church is elsewhere, let’s talk travel or video chat.) For information, send me a note at arleenwrites at gmail dot com. Looking forward to meeting up.
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Click here to view my current schedule.
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A fond farewell, and six blogs you have to see.

It is with sadness and gratitude (and admittedly more drama than necessary) that I bid a fond farewell to a piece of the past with which it is hard to part:

Google Reader.

For years, the site aggregated all the posts from my favorite blogs into a single feed. When Google announced awhile ago that Reader would retire July 1 (which is tomorrow), part of me panicked. The other part of me breathed a sigh of relief because I subscribe to 713 blogs and ain’t nobody got time for that.

In importing my subscriptions from Google Reader to Feedly (which is literally the easiest thing I ever have done on the Internet) (What up, one click?), I scrolled through posts in my collection and hoped the demise of the reader most of my friends use doesn’t mean good blogs now will go unread.

For you who use feeds like Feedly to read blogs and for you who don’t, here are six you have to see if you haven’t seen them yet:

EntreCatholic: My friend and fellow blogger Ryan Eggenberger runs and writes EntreCatholic.com, which features how-to’s and tips for people who plan to embark on the New Evangelization, plus commentary on Catholicism and life. Ryan interviewed me about sex and stuff once, which was super fun and is on video here.

Hell Burns: Sr. Helena Burns is a Daughter of St. Paul who has a flair for fusing Theology of the Body (TOB) with everything. On her site, Hell Burns, Sr. Helena reviews movies and rightly promotes her own (nuns can be filmmakers, too). She educates readers in TOB and media literacy, and her penchant for hockey is as infectious as her sense of humor.

Edmund Mitchell: Friend and fellow blogger Edmund Mitchell is one of my favorite Catholics. He is a youth minister, husband, and dad who has passions for the Catechism of the Catholic Church and for using it in the New Evangelization. He blogs at EdmundMitchell.com, where he interviewed me once (about sex and stuff, naturally).

All Groan Up: As I near the end of my 20s (I will be 28 on November 7. Mark your calendars.), it is with knowing laughter that I read what Paul Angone writes. Paul’s blog All Groan Up is designed to help 20-somethings navigate that awkward moment when you discover you don’t know how you feel about adulthood (among the many other awkward moments of our twenties). His book 101 Secrets For Your Twenties releases tomorrow (expect my review at the end of the month).

Evangelical to Catholic: Anthony Elias is a friend, fellow blogger, and newlywed, who – as the name of his site implies – converted from evangelicalism to Catholicism a couple years ago. On his blog, he writes about Protestantism and Catholicism from a unique perspective, knowing from experience both what it is like to be averted to Catholicism and to be totally Catholic.

AKA Jane Random: Paula Claunch, AKA Jane Random, is probably one of the funniest bloggers I have encountered. If you need proof, read about the time she “stepped on a rock.” (Trust me.) At AKAJaneRandom.com, Paula writes of life as a parent and wife, with humor and insight, worth a subscription on whatever feed you’ve found to replace your Google Reader.

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What are your favorite blogs?

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Thoughts on the Theology of the Body Institute.

A week ago, the charter bus struggled up the steep driveway that ends in front of the Black Rock Retreat Center, 50 miles outside Philly, where my flight had landed several hours earlier.

We had arrived for the Theology of the Body Institute’s TOB I: Head and Heart Immersion Course, instructed by Bill Donaghy in 10 sessions in six days in Amish Country. At home now, I type from my couch, ultimately aware of this:

BEST. WEEK. EVER.

I’ve never done anything like it in my life: fly somewhere where nobody I know would be waiting at the other side, to stay for a week with strangers. The strangers, as it turns out, were brothers and sisters in Christ and the week, one of my most memorable.
In no particular order, here are my thoughts on the experience, and what I learned:

  • I have so much more to learn about TOB.
  • “Prayer can progress, as a genuine dialogue of love, to the point of rendering the person wholly possessed by the divine Beloved.” -JP2 in Novo Millenio Ineunte
  • I need more Legionaries of Christ in my life. (And if you’re ever given the opp to sit around a table to have late night tea and conversation with a couple of ’em, do it.)
  • “Man cannot live without love. … his life is senseless, if love is not revealed to him, if he does not encounter love, if he does not experience it and make it his own, if he does not participate intimately in it.” -JP2 in Redemptor Hominis
  • Good Catholic men DO exist.
  • On men and women: “They are ‘brother and sister’ in the same humanity before they are ‘husband and wife.'” -page 25 of our workbook
  • HOW AWESOME ARE AMISH PEOPLE? For real.
  • “Human nature has not been totally corrupted; it is wounded…” -Catechism of the Catholic Church
  • “Lust … is eros cut off from agape.” -page 40 of our workbook
  • You can find examples of TOB everywhere, including in Lil Wayne songs.
  • “Love God, and do whatever you want.” -St. Augustine
  • I need no further proof that the human body is good and worth taking care of than the reminder that it’ll eventually resurrect and reunite with my soul after I’m dead.
  • TOB is the answer to the misguided (aka “totally wrong”) messages that the body is bad, sex is dirty, and it’s a woman’s fault if a man lusts, which circulate in and outside the church all the time.
  • Bill Donaghy is hilarious. And his son now refers to me as “G-ma,” which is short for grandma. And I’m ok with it.
  • “Every man is called in some way to be both a husband (self-gift) and a father (fruitfulness). Every woman is called in some way to be both a wife (self-gift) and a mother (fruitfulness).” -page 69 in our workbook
  • Christ didn’t dominate his church. (Remember that when you read Ephesians 5.)
  • I am VERY excited to wear my TOB t-shirt to mass tonight.